*Note: The Board of Directors voted
to combine the General Fund and the Lifetime Membership Fund on
July 26, 2010.

GIFT MEMBERSHIPS
AVAILABLE

Do you have a family
member that is interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy?
A membership in the Madison County Genealogical Society would
be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will be sent to the recipient
of any gift membership.

On August 12, 2010,
the regular meeting of the Madison County Genealogical Society
was held at the Madison County Historical Society Archival Library.

The introduction to the program was made by Mary Westerhold, Operations
Manager for the Library. She gave a brief general description
of the library's holdings.

Mary then introduced Marty Porter, Archivist at the library, who
talked about the work being done to put the Madison County Poor
Farm records into electronic form and to make them searchable.
The same type of effort is being done on the books of the former
Doerr Funeral Home of Bethalto, Illinois. The original records
of both institutions will still be available for viewing if desired.

After Marty finished his portion of the program, he introduced
LaVerne Bloemker, another Archivist at the library. LaVerne talked
about the library's extensive photo collection. She talked about
the effort that was being done to scan their photos to preserve
them and improve their quality. She also explained how the catalog
of photos could be searched.

Mary Westerhold then talked about the library's collection of
school photo albums, containing photos of both old schoolhouses
and of some of the student classes.

After the presentation, the many attendees had opportunities to
do some assisted research or to look at the original Poor Farm
books - if they wore the white cotton gloves provided to protect
the fragile volumes.

This meeting was very well attended and generated a lot of interest
on the part of the attendees.